Established in 1990, Akrapovic is a Slovenian manufacturer of premium motorcycle exhaust systems. Akropovic exhausts was founded by Igor Akrapovič, a racer and enthusiast who won multiple Formula-1 and World Superbike championship titles. He designed his own motorcycle exhaust system based on experience gained in the field of motorcycle tuning and racing. Replacing steel with high-quality stainless and the innovative use of titanium; the systems are known for their impact on performance, lightness, durability and sound. Akrapovic is a global exhaust supplier in motorcycle racing used in MotoGP, Superbike, Supersport, Supermoto, Motocross and Enduro. Their international prominence was achieved by the support of leading race teams. Manufacturers Kawasaki, Yamaha, Suzuki, Ducati and Honda started using the exhausts by the mid-1990s. Akrapovic partners with many motorcycle manufacturers who offer Akrapovic cans as optional factory or dealer-fit equipment.

In 1997, the company started working on exhaust systems for off-road bikes with manufacturers KTM and Husqvarna. Japanese teams began using Akrapovič exhausts on their WSBK machines. Akrapovic USA has expanded into custom bikes, scooters and the car market. Today, Akrapovič exhaust systems are some of the finest high-performance systems available on the market and the results they deliver have been validated in dozens of independent tests carried out by motorcycle magazines worldwide.

At a glance, Akrapovic Exhaust are by far the most premium exhaust we have in the RevZilla lineup. Find it at RevZilla.com/Akrapovic.

What Akropovic does, they're a Slovenian company that's been around since around 1990. Igor Akrapovic, ex-racer, he said "I want to put a pipe on my bike that gives me the weight savings, performance gain and the aesthetic that I specifically want for my discerning taste." In 1990, he could not find that option so he started his own company.

Akrapovic's, actually akra in Turkish means scorpion and if we see here, their logo is a little bit of the scorpion inspired, the scorpion character that kind of flows through a lot of what they do, but besides being super premium, super technical, super high end in both the way that they weld, the way that they design, and the [cab cam], and the performance that they provide, they're also one of the most aggressive looking pipes that we have.

I think my thing about Akrapovic is the attention to detail as well as the sound. It really is like no other. We see a lot of carbon fiber in front of me, you see a lot of titanium in front of me. We're going to walk through kind of some of the nuances.

Well, starting out this video, let's talk about the basics of exhaust buying from Akrapovic. Really you have three options. You're either buying a slip on, which is going to replace the stock silencer on your bike so it's going to connect right to, this is a multi-strata slip on. It's going to connect right to the exhaust pipe that comes stock on your bike.

You also have the option to go full system, which is the mid-pipe as well as the system that's going to have your headers that attach right to your engine. That comes in two flavors. It's either coming in the racing line, which is stainless steel or the Evolution, which is full titanium.

Now, when you think about a pipe, whatever you're going to chose to replace the stock pipes on your bike, you're getting weight savings, which is huge. It's something like an extra horsepower for every seven pounds that you save. It's different by bike. You're also getting a performance gain by that weight saving, by that horsepower and then typically if you're doing the full system, you can even get an even broader performance gain.

From there, you're also getting an aesthetic change. We see a lot of conical as well as hexagonal, really highly engineered designs from Akrapovic. You can see that in the end caps, in the silencers themselves and even as we make our way down into the pipes.

Now we think about the types of bikes that Akrapovic could fit, you're going to fit them on an offroad bike, on a dirt bike, also on a sport bike. They're very, very popular. But you also as of 2011 now have a full Harley line. Now from the sport bike and offroad world, you're going to have stainless steel or titanium options in your full systems for your mid-pipes and then on the silencers, you either have full titanium or you'll have full carbon fiber and that's really adding to that cost factor. It's a major investment to upgrade to Akrapovic, whether you're going slip on or you're going full system.

Now when you get into the Harley world, you either have stainless steel or you actually have chrome, which is awesome. They also come in black and remember that's a little bit different. It's going to match the design of the Harley side of the house and you're not going to have that blue in it that you get from titanium and you don't have that yellowing, which is actually designed for that you get out of a stainless steel midpipe.

Now we look at the line and we break it down. I have a few different pieces in front of me. Let's walk through them.

I have my multi-strata slip-on in front of me. Notice if I show you the back, it has carbon fiber heat shields and carbon fiber conical end packs. You're going to notice that throughout all these pipes and I'll explain a little bit further when we get to the full system. You have a mixture of mig and tig welds, depending on what is called for and you're also going to have stainless steel rivets, not aluminum rivets, because it's going to hold up better in the long run.

If we look at the back, everything that you buy with any Akrapovic exhaust is going to have everything you need out of the box to be able to install the product. Now you can get a spring puller for about 20 bucks from Akrapovic and there's some other things that you can add on.

One of the things I really want to hone in on is, this is an installation guide for a [CVR-600] and what we tend to find is that there are so many DIYers out there, myself included, that when you get a part, sometimes it's really difficult to understand when the part says "uninstall stock fitment." That's going to be really difficult to follow.

If we look at this and I have it here, we have black and white photography of every step for the install process, so again on every pipe.

Moving down the line, I have a ZX6 slip on and you can see again, it's going to slip and directly connect right to your stock exhaust. From there though, I go into a ZX10 slip-on with, notice it's hexagonal but it's a little bit more cylindrical, note the end here. But also I have a link pipe on here and this gets into a little bit of regulatory that you need to know about, but what you can do is that for a lot of Akrapovic exhaust, there's going to be slip ons. You can also purchase the link pipe that eliminates your catalytic converter. So it's really the in-between step between a just a slip on and a full system.

Now you can see here that I have my link pipe installed. Again, it's not a necessary upgrade, but you can do it to eliminate the cat, but be careful especially for you guys that are in California. There are emission laws, that you might get pulled over. Make sure you know. Whatever your local laws say, you need to follow those. Carbon fiber heat shields, carbon fiber conical end cap, again this is a titanium version, extremely light.

Inside each one of these exhausts, you're also going to have the fiberglass packing. That's really what creates a lot of that sound dampening. It's really tuned to the exhaust, so you get that appropriate note. There are different manufacturers that recommend different things, but Akrapovic recommends that you replace that packing about every 10,000 miles. So when you need to do that, there's about a hundred dollar replacement packing option from Akrapovic that we sell and you just want to make sure that you're local shop or if you're going to do it yourself, has the right tools to be able to replace these stainless steel rivets because it's a bit of a different drilling than it would be if they were aluminum.

Moving down from our three pipes that I had as our example pipes today with our multi strada ZX6 and ZX10, let's move into this full system for an R1. Really this is a full system EVO. Slide this guy out of the way. You can see it's the full system that's going to replace all the stock pipes that go with your bike. The difference between a full system racing and a full system evolution is the use of stainless steel in these components in the racing or titanium in the evolution. Sometimes the difference can be 20-30 pounds of difference. When you get into those types of weight savings, you're talking about dramatic performance gains for your motorcycle. Notice the way they've done this. Up here we have these flanges. The way that this is done, this is a demo pipe for this R1 so these are fixed, but normally they'd be free floating. If we see the attention to detail, it even says Akrapovic on the springs.

Moving down, different styles of welds. You're going to see TIG welds that use tungsten here, where they're a little bit lower profile in a less stressed area of the pipe. As we work our way back, as we come up here, you're going to see a MIG weld, which is a bit more heavy duty but adds a little bit of a thicker bead and a little bit more weight here in a main connection point. Then you also have your dual exhaust point for your different cans that would go there on the back. Again, if you're buying a full system, you're getting the silencers as well as getting the full system here with the mid-pipe and everything to attach to your engine. It's a little bit more of a beefy install, but take note that you're going to get everything you need in the box to be able to make that install. Most importantly, you're going to be getting the appropriate hardware.

One more thing I want to touch on. If you're looking and you're shopping Akrapovic on the site, remember on RevZilla.com you're going to want to put your bike in. You're going to be shopping by bike. There's a specific pipe, whether it be full system or slip on, for any bike. I think they make 65 different make and models for slip ons.

There's only really going to be one choice as this will be the Akrapovic ZX6 pipe. From there you can select titanium, you can select carbon fiber, you have some different options that it will tell you. Really, what you want to key in on is the weight savings as well as the performance gains. On every page, we're going to tell you how much weight that you're saving. There should also be a chart as far as your torque and horsepower gains. Remember, the horsepower is going to be the bumpier line that goes a little bit higher. Your torque line is going to be a little bit more linear and it's going to be more of a consistent slope. The red line is going to be the Akrapovic line with the upgrade and the blue line is going to be your stock line. Make sure you check that out. That's going to give you a good breakdown on what type of performance gains, weight savings and all the different types of factors besides just looking and sounding cool that you're getting out of your new pipe.

Let's pull out of our sports bike exhaust for a second and let's go back to Harley one more time. Remember I mentioned that Harley Davidson was new for 2011 for Akrapovic. A couple of things, I talked about colors earlier, you're either stainless steel chrome or you're going to be blacked out. They're the two flavors that they come in. When I talk about repacking on the Harley, it's actually a bolt construction, so it's a little bit easier to do it yourself, than using these stainless steel rivets, so keep that in mind.

A quick note on dirt bikes is that Akrapovic wants to be within the regulations. A lot of tracks have noise level regulations and when you're looking at the dirt bike exhaust which come in slip on, racing and evolution formats, you're also going to be able to note that some of the pipes have the ability to tune the sound or they're going to be regulated so that they fall within the bounds of what you'd expect for different track noise regulations.

We can talk about weight savings. We can talk about horsepower gains and we can certainly talk about aesthetic, which we all seem to just sit around and geek on because it's some of the most beautiful exhaust systems that we've ever had at RevZilla.com. It's certainly the leader of the pack.

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